Red Star British Rail failings hampered me today
Red Star British Rail failings hampered me today

A recovery morning, taking a long shower and washing my hair in some pain due to my scraped and wounded hands from tackling the boat pipe work. A long session reviewing the mail and returning phone calls which led to me inviting Percy Meyer and Sally Guinee across to have an update on their campaigns and to get adverts to subsidise our Focus newsletters.

The afternoon on the telephone organising my boat parts and service with many items underway but one thwarted by Red Star (British Rail) failings. The Finance Meeting of the District Council this evening where the Tories try to reduce the political impact of the Poll tax by £5 by taking £1/2 million from reserves, against the emphatic advice of the Director of Finance. Thatcher has had to climb down at last on the matter of Football I.D. cards and severe gales are expected tomorrow.

I slept in a little and then had a good long shower and hair wash which had been difficult on the boat and I felt much cleaner and fresher as a result. The only thing was that my hands were covered in scrapes and wounds from trying to repair the boat pipe-work and this was quite a painful exercise as a result. Then to my pile of mail. I took it into the conservatory and went through it thoroughly and there was quite a lot of reading of Council papers as well to keep me occupied. I tended the fish and plants and, although Di had looked after them as best she could, they needed a bit of attention. I then started to tackle the task of returning about a dozen phone calls from the messages that had been received on my answering machine.

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This led to me inviting Percy Meyer and Sally Guinee across to have an update on their campaigns and to write the copy and type out the selling literature for our efforts to get advertisers to subsidise the costs of FOCUS. This effectively took the whole morning and then I spent the afternoon on the telephone organising my boat parts and service. I 'phoned Barnes and discussed the "pump-out" work for Monday and warned them that I might be bringing the boat over to Wroxham later that day. Then I managed to arrange for a refrigeration engineer to call early on Monday morning and also an electrical engineer to call at the same time to fit the new Redi-line rotary inverter (that they are providing free of charge in lieu of the faulty one that had broken an armature). Back on the telephone to order a new water valve for my toilet to be posted first class from Wales in time for the weekend and then for the Webasto heater parts to be delivered to Horning. With these, I can provide a thermostat and automatic timer for the heating to come on for cold boating mornings. Lastly, I telephoned Navstar and arranged for their service department to update my Navigator to the new software release that is needed to link with my plotter.

I was all set to send this to Daventry by Red Star (British Rail) on my way to the Finance Meeting of the District Council this evening. Tea, and then changed to go out when my problems started. Due to staff shortages, the RedStar office at St Neots Station had closed early and I had no luck upon driving to Huntingdon either. With this, I went to the meeting rather frustrated by the inefficiencies of British Rail. The meeting was quite revealing. To try to reduce the political impact of the Poll Tax by £5, the Tories were planning to take £1/2 million from reserves, against the emphatic advice of the Director of Finance who feels that the balances are particularly needed now in view of the uncertainty about future spending controls. Then the matter of establishing this new Contract Services Committee was also controversial as there was further disregard of professional advice. Once home, Labour leader, Jim Lomax, 'phoned and we compared notes. The news today was of confirmation of the Fords pay deal and of the ramifications for other pay settlements in the car industry and thence the rest of the economy. Thatcher is set to climb down at last on the matter of Football I.D. cards. The crowd-safety problems involved with holding up spectator entry prior to a match have added to the arguments of economics and civil liberties. She is not happy. We are to expect severe gales tomorrow, as forecast earlier in the week.